


Dragonslayers

by nowrunalong



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Superman - All Media Types
Genre: Batfamily Shenanigans, Gen, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-24
Updated: 2019-01-24
Packaged: 2019-10-15 11:45:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17528102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nowrunalong/pseuds/nowrunalong
Summary: “Don’t you find it odd that a writer has created a fake persona to mask that they’ve written this particular book? It’s innocuous. It’s—” Tim grimaces as he wrestles his phone out of Jason’s grip “—unlikely that it would harm the career of any established author or public figure.”“So?”“So who wouldn’t want the world to know they’ve written a picture book about Batman and Superman?”





	Dragonslayers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Biocopic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Biocopic/gifts).



> Endless thanks to [TK](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TKodami/pseuds/TKodami) for the invaluable feedback and encouragement. Without them, this would still be hiding under a rug somewhere. ♥
> 
> This story is a very belated Christmas gift for [Biocopic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Biocopic/pseuds/Biocopic)! Thank you for your patience, friend. I hope you like it!

When Bruce finally escapes WayneTech’s annual budget meeting and returns home, he’s greeted by the sight of Batman and Superman wrestling in his living room.

“I do not require your help, alien,” Damian is saying loudly, Batman’s cowl sliding down so that the forehead obscures his eyes. Gripped in a headlock, he kicks Superman in the shin with a comically oversized boot.

“Stop squirming,” Dick says, wincing as the boot connects with his leg. He’s wearing a store-bought Superman tights-and-cape outfit, complete with the red trunks Clark had forsaken several years ago. “We’re supposed to be a team. And you called me here.”

“I most certainly did not.”

“You did,” Wonder Woman says. “I heard you. You went, ‘Ooh, Mister Superman. I can’t do it alone.’”

“Shut it, Todd.”

Jason cracks the rope in his hand like a whip. “Don’t make me squeeze the truth out of you with my magic lasso, brat.”

“That is merely a rope. It lacks any magical properties.”

“Superman!” Jason says, clutching his chest like he’s been stabbed. “Batman insulted my rope!”

“I heard him, Wonder Woman. Terribly rude. Next time, we should let the dragon eat him. Oh—hey, Bruce.” Dick straightens a little, but doesn’t loosen his hold on Damian.

“I don’t want to know.” Bruce holds a hand up to Dick, who freezes—mouth agape like a goldfish—before he can get a word of explanation out. “Where’s Tim?”

“He played the part of the dragon,” Damian answers gravely. “I defeated him.”

“ _We_ defeated him,” Dick corrects, “with teamwork.” To Bruce, he adds: “Tim’s asleep behind the couch.”

Bruce surveys the scene in front of him. Dick’s knee-high red socks have collapsed around his ankles. Damian is drowning in Batman’s cape. Jason’s usually-jaunty hair has been flattened against his forehead by the tiara Barbara wore to prom. All that can be seen of Tim is one socked foot, sticking out from behind the couch where he lies conked out on the hardwood floor.

At least a dozen question hang in the air before him; seven hours of nonstop budget deliberations quash the will to ask a single one.

“Okay,” he says, and retreats to his office.

~*~

“I don’t think he knows,” Dick says, surprised, once Bruce has left. “He seemed… did he seem oblivious to you? No—wait, don’t say anything. Bruce is a scary good actor. He could be bluffing.”

Jason sits down next to Tim on the floor and flips open a book. A brightly-coloured illustration of Batman and Superman fighting a dragon sparkles up at them from its glossy pages. Jason sticks it on Tim’s face.

“He’s definitely bluffing,” Tim mumbles. He gives his head a little shake, and the book falls to the floor.

“Clyde Kent?” Damian says, a little huffy, as he picks the book up to glare at the cover. “Horrendous, pedestrian name.”

“The guy is writing picture books, Dami. He’s not trying to be the next J. R. R. Tolkien.” Dick gestures for Damian to hand the book over and flips it open again. “Not that this isn’t award-worthy content right here.” Clearing his throat, Dick adopts a low growly bass. “I can’t stop the dragon alone! I have to call for help! I have to call—”

“You are being absurd,” Damian says, crossing his arms.

“—my best friend, Superman!” Dick and Jason shout in unison.

Tim rolls over onto his front, props himself up on his elbows, and pulls out his phone. “I looked into Clyde Kent.”

“And?” Dick asks.

“He’s not real. His social media presence only goes back a year, and he uses the same profile picture on every site.” Tim grabs the book from Damian and holds it up, displaying the author’s photo on the back: a man in a white button-up shirt who looks about sixty flashes them a crinkly-eyed smile. “This one.”

“He is old,” Damian says critically. “Perhaps he is only just learning to adapt to the digital age.”

“Well, yeah,” Tim says. “Plenty of people don’t have extensive social media presences. But he has no apparent friends or followers or significant interactions of any kind with anyone else, on any platform. No one else mentions him on their pages, or tags him in photos. He never indicates a family or a personal life. And other than a link to buy his book on Amazon, his pages are empty. Clyde Kent is clearly someone’s attempt at an alias.”

Jason tugs Tim’s phone from his hand and looks at Clyde Kent’s Instagram page. The only post is a shakily-photographed Barnes & Noble display of _My Best Friend Superman_. “Lots of writers use pseudonyms. What’s your point?”

“Don’t you find it odd that a writer has created a fake persona to mask that they’ve written this particular book? It’s innocuous. It’s—” Tim grimaces as he wrestles his phone out of Jason’s grip “—unlikely that it would harm the career of any established author or public figure.”

“So?” 

“So—who wouldn’t want the world to know that they’ve written a picture book about Batman and Superman?”

~*~

“Clark,” Bruce says, reclined as far back in his ergonomic office chair as it will allow. His stapler is missing from his desk; he hopes idly that it hadn’t been appropriated for dragon-fighting purposes. “Are you free this evening?”

A sharp intake of breath at the other end of the line. “Are you asking me out?”

Bruce frowns slightly. “Well, I just thought—”

“Bruce, I’d love to see you,” Clark reassures him. “I’m surprised, is all. Usually I’m the one doing the asking. Actually, it’s why I called.”

Bruce can hear Clark’s grin all the way in… wherever the hell he is.

“Want to go to a thing?” Clark asks.

“A thing,” Bruce repeats tonelessly.

“Yeah, it’s—there’s an event on at the library. A book sale, celebrating local authors. Some of them will be signing their work.”

“Not… exactly the evening I had in mind.”

“Aw, come on,” Clark says. “It’s my treat. It’ll be fun.”

“It’s a free event.”

“Well, yeah, but I’ll buy you a coffee afterward. And I’ll walk you home. And carry your books. And—hey, how did you know it was free?”

“It’s at a public library. They never charge for entry.”

Bruce has his doubts about this; he should probably suggest something else. An evening spent with Clark, however, is unlikely to be an evening he’ll regret. He sighs his resignation into the phone.

“What time should I meet you?”

~*~

“I bet it’s someone who knows them for real,” Dick is saying, perched on the kitchen counter in shorts and a Gotham University t-shirt. Beneath his dangling feet, the Superman costume lies in a heap on the floor. He pushes the button on the espresso machine, and then waits for the racket of the coffee grinder to stop before finishing his thought. “You know, ‘cause of secret identity reasons. Someone who’s just a big fan of Batman and Superman would probably want to be noticed by them. But someone they work with? Maybe not so much.”

“ _Superman_ ,” Damian says with contempt, as he paces the room. “The alien himself is a likely candidate. He has ties to Father. This could be an effort to market their professional relationship as something…” Damian wrinkles his nose, rather than complete that sentence.

“More personal?” Jason suggests. “More _intimate_? Hey, d’you think Bruce would actually go for that Super d—”

“Anyway,” Dick says loudly. “Damian has a point. It could have been anyone in the League. Women write under male pseudonyms all the time. I mean… it could have been Wonder Woman.”

At the table, Tim pulls a staple from his hair. “As far as methods to encourage friendship go, this seems about as effective as trying to get Batman and Superman into a Get Along shirt. Potentially worse, if Bruce blows a fuse when he reads it. I don’t think it was Diana.”

“Bruce has been dodgy as fuck lately,” Jason points out. “I’m just saying.”

“You cannot possibly be suggesting that Father wrought _this_ ,” Damian flaps the book indignantly at Jason, “into being.”

“Considering what else he’s ‘wrought’ into being—”

“Shut it, Jason,” Dick says. “Although, Bruce has been…”

“Avoiding us?”

“He has been spending a lot of time in his study,” Dick says pensively.

“Father did not write the book,” Damian insists. “In fact, Grayson seems the most amused by it.” He looks Dick in the eye. “For all we know, he could be the perpetrator.”

“God, I wish. I swear, if I wrote this, you would all know.”

“It could be Bruce,” Tim says slowly. “It probably isn’t, but—think about it. I mean, what’s the likelihood he’d ever openly admit to Superman being his best friend, even if he did consider him as such? If he were going to say it, he might realistically go the ‘annoying and indirect’ route.” He adds another staple to the pile on the table, and then directs his attention to his phone, frowning slightly.

“This is pretty direct,” Dick says, holding the book open to the page where Superman gives Batman a friendship bracelet. “That’s a goddamn declaration of love right there.”

“Fiction,” Damian mumbles. “Slanderous fiction.”

“Hey—Tim?” Dick plucks a grape from the fruit bowl on the counter and launches it at the table; it bounces off Tim’s knee and rolls underneath the fridge. “Earth to Tim?”

“Hmm?” Tim says, without looking up from his phone.

“What are you staring at?”

“Clyde Kent just made a second Facebook post. He’s going to be appearing at a book fair at the Metropolis Library in two hours.”

Dick sets his espresso cup down and clasps both hands to his face. “No way!”

“Well, I know where _I’m_ going,” Jason says, grinning toothily. He snatches up Dick’s coffee and finishes it off in one gulp. “Looks like Clyde Kent’s not going to be the only surprise appearance in Metropolis tonight.”

~*~

Bruce finds Dick, Damian, Jason, and Tim in the front hall. All four are wearing jackets and disturbingly matching furtive expressions.

He should ask.

He does not.

“I’ll be out this evening,” he says, grabbing his own coat from the hook and a pair of leather gloves from the mahogany dresser. “Last-minute meeting with Lucius.”

He escapes out the door, coat still entirely unbuttoned, before anyone can question him.

~*~

Bruce had clearly broken all kinds of speed limits on the way to his so-called-meeting: the whole way to Metropolis, Dick never once caught a glimpse of the Aston Martin ahead.

Inside the library, too, the hustle and bustle of activity makes it impossible to immediately pinpoint any one person.

“We can’t really be thinking that Bruce is going to be signing books here, are we?” Jason says doubtfully. “Writing a book expressing his secret love for Superman, okay. But he’s still Bruce Wayne. People are going to recognize him, and if he’s got a pen, it’s not going into _books_ , if you catch my—”

“Yeah, yeah, we get it,” Dick says, clapping a hand over Jason’s mouth. And then: “Oh my God. Holy shit.” Dick takes a breath, and then winces. “Ow, hell.”

“Ow?” Tim asks curiously.

“Jason,” Dick says, by way of explanation. He removes his hand from Jason’s face and wipes it on his pants. “Look. Guys, _look_.”

They look.

Amid the crowd of parents and tiny children, Bruce stands alone beside an enormous cardboard cutout of a sparkly green dragon.

~*~

Bruce doesn’t startle at all when Dick, Damian, Jason, and Tim appear behind him. He just turns and fixes them with a split-second look of dismay before the expression flattens into one of impassivity.

“What… are you doing here.”

“Well, you know,” Jason says, picking up a copy of the book. “We were wondering the same thing.”

“I’m meeting someone.”

“Here?” Jason waves the book in Bruce’s face; the motion ruffles a few carefully-styled hairs out of place. “Something you wanna tell us, B?”

A man clasps Bruce on the shoulder. “Hey! You made it! You, uh—I didn’t realize your family would be coming along.” He adjusts his glasses nervously, but he looks inexplicably pleased.

“I didn’t either,” Bruce says. “I’d love to know to what I owe this spectacular invasion of privacy.”

“This is a public event,” Dick says, trying to be diplomatic. It falls a little flat. “Uh, but we came here because of this book. Honest! We just wanted to meet the author.”

Bruce’s—friend?—becomes visibly more nervous.

Bruce turns to stare at him. “You wrote a picture book?”

“Er,” the man says. “See, that’s why I wanted to meet you here.”

“You wrote a book,” Bruce says, picking up a copy and thumbing through it at light speed, “about Batman and Superman.”

“Um. Yup.”

“You didn’t write it?” Damian asks Bruce.

“What.” Bruce looks aghast.

“I told you!” Damian says, poking Jason in the chest. “I told you it wasn’t Father!”

Bruce looks at the book. Looks at the man next to him. Looks back at the book. “Clyde Kent,” he says eventually. “ _Clyde_ Kent?”

“I got the idea from a barista at Starbucks,” the man says defensively. “She wrote it on my cup. I must not have enunciated well enough. You really didn’t know?”

“Why would I—I don’t keep on top of picture book releases, Clark.”

“So… _you’re_ Clyde Kent?” Tim asks. He squints at the back cover of the book Bruce is still holding up. “He does kind of look like you, actually. Except old.”

“ _Clark_ Kent.” It’s Bruce who says it. His expression is wholly unreadable. “Daily Planet."

“You’re a reporter?” Damian asks Clark, eyes narrowed.

“Yes.” Clark looks at Bruce with a slight frown. “I asked Bruce to meet me here for… well.”

“Jesus,” Bruce mutters to himself. And then, more audibly: “I’m not here for an interview. Damian, keep that knife in your pocket. Clark is a… friend.”

“Right,” Clark says, nodding. “Friends.”

Jason looks at them. Takes in the way that Clark hasn’t taken a single step back from Bruce since he’d shown up. Considers the way Bruce hasn’t moved, either. Hasn’t… expressed any kind of discomfort, or disapproval.

“So, like… ‘best’ friend,” he says. He makes the air quotes around ‘best’, and then picks up _My Best Friend Superman again_. “Like, best… super… friend.”

Tim’s eyes widen as he catches on.

Clark winks.

“Aw, man!” Dick says, delighted. “Hey—Clark. You didn’t, uh… actually give Bruce a friendship bracelet? By any chance?"

“It was a really ring,” Clark says seriously.

Bruce looks like he might choke on air. “Outside,” he says, to everyone and no one in particular. “We can continue this… _outside_.”

~*~

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” Clark says to Bruce later, once they’re alone again. “I thought you might try to dissuade me from writing it.”

“Hm.”

“Your kids seem great,” Clark adds. “They’re pretty quick to catch on to things.”

“Hm.”

“Are you mad at me?”

Bruce looks at Clark. Clark, who had written a book, which—in its own ridiculous, roundabout way—had ultimately been about their trust in each other, and then had disguised it behind a truly terrible fake name and a photograph of his father.

(It’s not endearing. It’s _not_.)

Clark grins as Bruce settles back into his embrace. “You’re _not_ mad at me."

“If we ever do fight a dragon,” Bruce says, voice muffled against Clark’s shoulder, “I’m letting it eat you.”

**Author's Note:**

> I must give credit to:
> 
> \+ [this DELIGHTFUL fan comic](http://drawingpankake.tumblr.com/post/168888120226/) by drawingpankake on Tumblr for "Clyde Kent", and  
> \+ the existence of [this children's book](http://clarkandbruce.tumblr.com/post/180598322034/) for inspiring this story.


End file.
